


When I Give, I Give Myself

by awomannotagirl



Series: her one wild and precious life [1]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First Time, Older Woman/Younger Woman, a certain amount of angst, wow quite a lot of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awomannotagirl/pseuds/awomannotagirl
Summary: “You still haven’t told me,” Miranda said, “what you’re doing here.”Andy repeated the delicate circuit of Miranda’s ear with the tip of her finger. “I think you want me here,” she said, speaking as quietly as Miranda did. “I think you can use me.”





	1. Chapter 1

_New York Alumni of the Medill School of Journalism, Social Hour_  
_September 2007_

 

It was the kind of event that made Andy feel like she was not just chasing but catching up to the career she really wanted. She was still the most junior reporter on an unimportant beat at the smallest and least influential of the New York dailies, but she was working toward more. She was beginning to know people and they were beginning to know her. And here, she actually belonged. Sort of. 

She’d spent the whole evening being charming, getting her business cards into people’s hands, and she was frankly exhausted. The crowd in the bar was thinning rapidly as people with kids and spouses headed home and people with adult social lives, or those like her who worked the most demanding jobs, took off for hipper bars or bed. Andy lurked near the high wooden bar until she was able to grab a stool—at last—and let her heels fall to the floor underneath it.

Her sigh caught the attention of the person next to her, who grinned at her vocalized relief. “I never understood those things,” he—no, _she_ , Andy realized with a guilty internal wince—said, gesturing to the discarded shoes. “How did they end up being regulation footwear for professional women? It seems like a sexist conspiracy to me.”

Andy smiled. “They’re pretty torturous, but they sure make your legs look great.” 

“If you wear skirts.” The woman gestured at her own distinctly unfeminine attire. She was wearing a suit, a men’s suit rather than a “menswear-inspired” suit if Andy knew anything about it, which she did. It was a nice suit, beautifully tailored or possibly even bespoke, but aggressively not regulation wear for professional women. “Nobody’s seen me in a skirt in twenty-five years, thank God.”

“So you’ve avoided the regulations.” Andy caught the bartender’s eye and got another glass of wine. Her companion, she noticed, was drinking something amber and powerful-looking from a squat glass.

“Yes, well, it’s not a set of rules I was any good at following. I always felt like a giraffe wrapped in a beach towel when I wore a dress.” 

Andy laughed and took a sip of the not-too-terrible house red, swiveling her stool to face her new acquaintance. She gave a quick, scrutinizing glance, taking the woman in and evaluating without letting herself stare: dark eyes, short dark hair with a dusting of silver in it, the lines of about fifty years settled into a good-natured but weary face. Thick, plain gold band on the left ring finger; Andy felt a quick pinch of … disappointment? She banished it immediately and firmly. She was not interested in fifty-year-old women. Even quite handsome ones. 

“It’s a very complicated language,” she offered. “Clothes, I mean. Fashion.”

“Some people seem to be born knowing it,” the woman said, her eyes far away. She glanced over, seeming to return to the moment as she appraised Andy’s carefully curated outfit. “You seem like a native speaker.”

“God, no,” Andy replied, shuddering. “I had a rapid and brutal education.” The woman raised her eyebrows inquiringly, and Andy elaborated, “My first job was at _Runway_.”

“You don’t say,” the other said, obvious surprise and … something … in her voice. “I was just thinking of—” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you get to know Miranda Priestly at all?”

Andy barked a humorless laugh. “I was her assistant. So, yes, ten or twelve hours a day worth, and no, not even a little bit.”

The woman shook her head, a wondering smile on her lips. She looked directly at Andy and said, “Who are you? I mean, what’s your name?”

“Andy Sachs,” Andy replied, offering her hand.

The woman took it, some new, soft knowledge in her eyes. “I’m Jules Willis. Miranda and I go way back. Not that either of us would admit it.”

Andy frowned, baffled. “Why …?” 

“Oh,” Jules said, waving a hand, “different reasons for each of us. Her, because I’m just a scruffy writer rat scraping along doing the same thing I was twenty years ago. Me—” Her gaze went off into nowhere. “I guess because she got everything she wanted, and what she had to do to get it doesn’t seem to have bothered her.” 

Andy shook her head minutely, her brow crinkling in puzzlement. “That’s very cryptic.”

Jules sighed. “There’s a lot of stuff I shouldn’t say.”

“Do you think I’m going to report back?” Andy’s senses were prickling; there was something here she really, really wanted to know.

“You are a reporter,” with a flash of the good humor of before. More soberly, she said, “I don’t mean that she did anything wrong. She didn’t hurt anyone, not that I know of. Contrary to her reputation, she has a great deal of principle. She just—” Her face twisted slightly, briefly, as if with an old pain. “She had to become someone she wasn’t to become Miranda Priestly.”

Andy drank her wine, and Jules her bourbon or whatever it was, in silence for a few moments. Abruptly Jules said, addressing her glass, “I’m going to tell you. Because, weirdly, it might have something to do with you.”

Now Andy was thoroughly confused, and a little scared. “Ohh-kay,” she said slowly.

“I met Miranda when we were both just out of college. So that was, huh, late seventies, I guess,” Jules said. “And—I assume you’ve figured that I’m a lesbian?” She glanced sideways, and Andy nodded, suppressing an eye roll. “Well. So was Miranda. Then.”

Andy digested this with some surprise. No: a great deal of surprise, and unexpected elation.

“At least—I don’t know. She was sleeping with women then. We were more didactic in those days. You were or you weren’t.” She took a pull at her drink. “When she took a job at _Runway_ , and it was clear even then that she was going to the top, she stopped. It was like she decided, I can’t be a power in the fashion world and a lesbian too. And maybe she was right. In any case, she decided that being successful at this thing she wanted was more important than being happy.”

That last made Andy wince. _Happy_ and _Miranda_ were not concepts that belonged in the same wing of the library, but for the first time, it occurred to her that this might be an acquired and not natural state of affairs. Andy inquired delicately, “Were you and she …”

“Were we lovers? No. We were friends, that was all. But I watched her make a choice I didn’t have. I mean, look at me. I couldn’t pass for straight for twenty-five years if I’d wanted to. Hell, I couldn’t pass for straight for twenty-five minutes. I wouldn’t, but more than that, I couldn’t. It bugged me that she could. And would. Still does.”

Andy nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“You probably don’t,” Jules said. “You live in a different world, thank God.” She smiled wryly. “You’ll never have to choose between what you want to be and how you get to live.”

Andy tried to think about this, tried to reconcile it with the cool, self-contained woman she knew. “You said …” Andy resurrected what Jules had started to say earlier. “That what you weren’t saying was about me, somehow.”

“Right,” and now Jules looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t know, of course. It’s not like I’ve talked to her. But you’re a little famous in the circles of people who know Miranda. You quit, and she didn’t burn down your house and slaughter your cows and salt your fields.”

Andy, unprofessionally, giggled.

Jules turned her head and held Andy’s eyes. “She cares about you.”

 _What?_ “I was a good assistant,” Andy said, uncertainly.

Jules shrugged. “I’m sure you’re capable. You’re also a charming and gorgeous young woman. You’re basically everything she’s denied herself for half her life.”

The earth shifted silently out from under Andy’s feet. “You think she wants … she has … for _me_?”

Jules grinned. “At the risk of sounding like the dirtiest dirty old woman ever, look at yourself,” she said, gesturing at the mirror behind the bar. “Who wouldn’t?” 

Andy automatically followed Jules’s gesture, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. She didn’t see _gorgeous_ ; all she saw was _stunned_ and _bewildered_. 

“Oh my God,” she said, under her breath. “Maybe I wasn’t making all that up.”

“If _that_ ,” Jules said, “was ‘Miranda is paying me a lot of weird obsessive attention,’ then no, I suspect you weren’t.”

“What am I going to do?” Andy whispered.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Jules responded. “Miranda isn’t going to stalk you or harass you or even, probably, ever contact you again. She’s a decent human being, under all that, and … honorable, I think I’d have to call it. It’s in her head, not yours.”

Andy turned her head and looked at Jules, long and full and hopeless.

“Oh.” Jules cleared her throat. “Or maybe it is.”

Andy closed her eyes, fighting a sudden wave of sadness. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not—It could never happen.”

Jules peered at her. “Why not?”

Andy threw her head back and addressed the ceiling. “She’s famous? She’s powerful? She’s a freaking international fashion icon whose job requires looking at beautiful half-naked women all day? What do you think people would say? She’d never risk that, not for—” She waved her hands vaguely at herself. “To say nothing of the fact that she’s twenty-five years older than me.” 

“Well, she isn’t going to _marry_ you. But—” Jules caught Andy’s flush, and stopped herself. “Oh. Wow. You do have it bad.”

“I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation,” Andy muttered.

Jules reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “Andy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be raking all this up for you. I had no idea, really.”

“Me neither.” Andy drew a deep breath.

Jules smiled, humor and sympathy in her eyes. “What say we talk about something that isn’t Miranda Priestly. What else have you got? Politics? Finance? Sports?”

Andy took another deep breath. “Well, it’s football season.”

Jules perked up. “I can always discuss a 4-3 defense.”

“College or pro?”

Jules groaned: “Pro. I can’t keep track of a hundred and sixty-eight teams.”

“I’m only interested in Ohio State and the Big Ten in college ball. But I can talk pro with the pros.”

“Can you. All right. Let’s establish some understanding, shall we? What’s your take on the Patriots?”

“The Yankees of the NFL,” Andy said promptly, clearly not meaning it as a compliment, “and Belichik is a snake.”

“Excellent. How about the Cowboys?”

“America’s Bandwagon,” Andy sneered. “What’s your team?”

“Green Bay.”

Andy raised her eyebrows. “Feeling no pain, then.”

Jules shook her head. “I’m older than you are. There’s been plenty of suffering for the green and gold. The years of Bart Starr—as coach.”

Andy pointed at herself dramatically. “Bengals. I know about suffering.”

“You sure do,” Jules muttered.

 

_Annual Luncheon, Women and the Word New York_  
_December 2007_

 

“Miranda!”

“Jules. Good to see you.”

“I actually believe you mean that.”

“Of course I do.”

“You look fabulous, as always.”

(Remark ignored.)

“I ran into an acquaintance of yours a few weeks ago. Andy Sachs.”

“Andy. Oh. Yes, she was my assistant for a time.”

“So she said. She thinks a lot of you.”

“Oh? She was … she is a highly competent young woman.”

“Yes, I was very impressed with her. I’m having lunch with her next week.”

“Are you.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Miranda? We’re going to talk about magazine writing. I’ll probably introduce her to some editors. Did you think I was going to sweep her off to a hotel and ravish her?”

“Of course not.”

“I think I can resist Andy’s charms for an hour or so. I’ve managed to be faithful to Caitlin for twenty-two years, after all. You shouldn’t be surprised by that, you introduced us.”

“I remember.”

“They are considerable, though.”

“What are?”

“Andy’s charms.”

“Ah. Yes. Perhaps.”

“Anything I should tell her?”

“Who?”

“Andy. Anything you’d like me to pass on?”

(Long pause.)

“Give her my best.”

 

_The Undersea Colony_  
_January 2008_

 

In the blue half-light of the club, Andy almost didn’t recognize Emily when the crowd swept them together. “Emily! Hello!”

A cool, appraising glance. “Hi, Andy. I’m surprised you’re still in New York.”

“Really? Why? No, don’t tell me. How are you?” Andy had to half shout to be sure Emily could hear.

“I’ve been better. It’s been a hellish couple of weeks.” Emily did look tired.

“ _Runway_?” Andy guessed. “What’s up? It isn’t Fashion Week.”

“You haven’t heard? I suppose you wouldn’t have.”

Andy looked concerned. “Hey, come into the back room. I want to hear what’s going on.”

It was slightly quieter in the lounge. Andy got them each a drink, which Emily accepted gratefully and started into immediately.

“So what’s up?” Andy prompted.

“That smooth journalistic touch,” Emily said, with a half sneer. “Well. The usual, sort of. Corporate has slashed the editorial budget by three million dollars, and after last year’s cuts, I don’t know where it’s going to come from. Neither does Miranda, of course, and she’s been … oh, God, I can’t even talk about it.”

Andy shuddered sympathetically. “Irv?”

“I’m sure he’s behind it,” Emily said poisonously. “He’s a fiend. But that’s not the bad part. On Friday …” She hesitated.

“Yes?” Andy urged.

“I’m sure I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’m not really even supposed to know about it.”

Andy forced herself to continue to look friendly and interested and not seize Emily by the throat and shake her. “Mm hmm?”

“I heard Irv in her office. He said, and I quote, ‘I’d rather lose a hundred million dollars than have to deal with you any longer. You can consider _Runway_ on life support, and I’ve got my hand on the plug.’ ” She held up a hand. “Yes, I know he’s always threatening Miranda, but this time, she looked absolutely ghastly after he left.”

“Huh,” Andy said slowly. “What could he do, really? He can’t just shut down the magazine. Not when it’s so profitable. He has to answer to the shareholders and the board.”

“He’s doing something,” Emily said darkly. “I’ve never seen Miranda in such a snit. And I have seen snits, let me tell you.”

Andy sipped her drink and decided she would look around. She wasn’t a financial reporter, but she knew people who were, and if she happened to point someone at a story, she might happen to get some inside information. 

 

_Media Darling (publishing-industry blog)_  
_January 28, 2008_

 

Deal of the young century? To everyone’s surprise, Elias-Clarke is shopping its flagship, _Runway_ , and the word is that it’s going to go fast. Several suitors are sniffing, but the most serious talks appear to be, oddly enough, with the Pritchard Group, an outfit known best for acquiring and dismantling troubled companies and selling off the bits. Is there unknown chaos behind _Runway_ ’s oh-so-put-together façade? Or is this an example of the famously vindictive Irv Ravitz flexing his muscles as EC’s chairman to take a swing at Miranda Priestly? If so, it’s going to hurt when he connects: Priestly may be a mover and shaker in the multi-billion-dollar fashion industry, but most of her (considerable) personal net worth is tied up with the magazine she runs. A Pritchard Group fire sale might leave her in last year’s rags.

 

_East Eighty-Sixth Street and Lexington Avenue_  
_February 1, 2008_

 

The first day of February, New York’s worst month, was already piercingly cold. Andy left the subway station buttoning her coat with nerveless fingers, but the frigid, damp wind barely registered. Her focus was on continuing to breathe, which she was not sure she would do autonomically in the state she was in. 

She had deliberately taken the express to 86th instead of the local to 77th, because she wanted this walk to calm herself down. If that was possible. She had never done or even considered doing anything like what she was about to do. She felt brave, she felt foolish, she felt like a child, she felt like a slut, but more than anything she felt compelled. Once she had thought of this, she knew she had to do it. And things had fallen into place beautifully, as if she were being urged by the universe into the right course. She got her first Saturday off in almost six months. Then she had had a conversation with Emily, ostensibly checking up on Emily’s wellbeing after a trying week, during which she’d managed to learn that the twins were on a ski trip and Miranda had no events planned.

She balled her hands into fists and pulled them into her coat. She wished she had thought to bring handwarmers. She might be _(wanted to be)_ touching bare skin, and gloves alone were not going to keep her hands from being painfully icy. Well, it would be all right, she thought. There would be many minutes before she could expect any kind of contact. There was a lot to say. Wasn’t there?

She ducked her head and concentrated fiercely on her feet. She had tried very hard not to anticipate or rehearse; if there was one thing she had learned about Miranda in the time she had worked for her, and indeed in all of the time since, it was that she never did anything the way Andy expected her to. So preparing a speech, even running through possible things to say, was a waste of time and sure only to make her more anxious than she already was.

She focused her awareness on warming her hands as best she could and on the sound and feel of her shoes on the pavement; it was calming, the scrape and slap of soles on concrete, the firmness under the balls of her feet. Then, suddenly, as if she had teleported the intervening blocks, she was in front of Miranda’s house. 

She didn’t let herself pause, though she wanted to desperately; she marched up the steps and rang the bell. Seconds passed. More seconds. Time began to drag and warp and Andy started to worry: Was Miranda out? Had she miscalculated? Been misinformed? It was Friday night. People went out on Friday nights. Just because Miranda didn’t have anything on her schedule at the office didn’t mean that …

The door opened. Miranda stood there, looking out at Andy, who was blinking under the harsh light of the outdoor fixture. “Good. God,” she said, the two words separate and staccato. “Andrea.” They looked at each other a long moment more, neither moving, both keeping careful, neutral expressions. Finally Miranda said, “Come in, Andrea. It’s freezing,” and moved back into the house, a tiny jerk of her head indicating that Andy was to follow.

Andy stepped into the foyer and shut the door behind her. Miranda picked a tumbler up off the small table—the Book’s table—and, glancing back, indicated with another wordless motion of her head that Andy should come upstairs behind her.

Andy shucked off her shoes and followed. Every sense was screaming at her. The tiny sounds of Miranda’s silent house rushed and roared: the creak of each step, the shushing swish of Miranda’s skirt. The house was so much warmer than the outside that her cheeks burned, and she caught the faint scent of liquor from the glass Miranda carried. She removed her coat as they climbed to the second floor, holding it in her hand because she had no idea where to put it. She had never had occasion to put anything of her own down anywhere in Miranda’s house.

They entered Miranda’s study, and Miranda turned to face Andy. The expression on her face was unfamiliar, unreadable. “To what do I owe this signal honor?” Miranda’s words would have had sting in them, if they had been delivered with her ordinary hauteur and not a resigned weariness.

Andy didn’t answer immediately. She glanced around and put her coat over the back of an armchair. She guessed that Miranda wouldn’t like it much, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment. Her heart was pounding and she found she could only breathe in shallow, rapid sips. At the same time, though, she felt absolutely powerful. She stepped closer, only a few inches from Miranda, closer than she’d ever dared to stand when she worked for her. Then she reached up and touched Miranda’s cheek with the fingertips of her left hand. 

“You’ve had a rough week,” she said, amazed at how steady her voice was. 

Miranda, astonishingly, did not pull away from Andy’s fingers. She did not snap or lash or bite, verbally or otherwise. She stood, looking, and let Andy slowly, slowly stroke tiny circles on her face. Finally she asked, “What makes you say that?”

“Keisha Lowe,” Andy answered, as measured and careful as Miranda was being, “who writes the Media Darling blog, used to work with me at the _Mirror_. She told me a few things that she couldn’t put on the record because she couldn’t get corroboration, even though she was sure they were true. And when I talked to Emily this afternoon, she was in the state she only gets into when you’re in a state.” 

Miranda closed her eyes, briefly. When she opened them again, her gaze was less sharp. “Yes,” she said, low and tired, “it has been a rough week.” Andy moved her hand just slightly and let one finger trace the curve of Miranda’s ear. She heard Miranda’s inhalation, felt the minute rise of her head. “You still haven’t told me,” Miranda said, with even less steel in her voice, “what you’re doing here.”

Andy repeated the delicate circuit of Miranda’s ear with the tip of her finger. “I think you want me here,” she said, speaking as quietly as Miranda did. “I think you can use me.” Though she’d chosen the phrase deliberately, her own crude boldness startled her, and she felt a powerful throb. 

Miranda’s eyelids fluttered again, and she breathed, “Jules should have kept her mouth shut.” 

“Jules didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know,” Andy said, lying only a little bit. She let her fingers drawl down Miranda’s neck, reveling in the feel of her skin. She might get nothing but this, she knew, so she focused on memorizing the sensation. 

“You should leave,” Miranda said. This was a little louder than her last statement, but only a little, and if it was meant to be forceful, it failed. 

Andy considered this. “No,” she said finally, “I don’t think I should.” Instead she lifted her other hand to join the touching, sliding her palms to either side of Miranda’s face. She ran her thumbs gently along Miranda’s cheekbones, and she was rewarded by Miranda’s letting her lips part very slightly.

Then, very slowly—glacially, one could say—she brought her face closer and closer to Miranda’s, judging how Miranda was reacting, anticipating with every millimeter she moved that Miranda would jerk away. She didn’t. And finally, Andy’s mouth touched, just touched, the mouth that she had been watching obsessively for two years. A soft brush of lip on lip. 

And then they were kissing. Just the press of their lips at first, but quickly and hungrily Andy touched her tongue to Miranda's bottom lip, and it became a teasing, opening, glorious wet mess.

When Andy finally broke away, taking a breath and a moment to wonder, Miranda’s hands had found Andy’s face and were holding her steady between them. 

“All right,” Miranda said into the silence broken only by their breath (ragged, gasping breath). “You’re here. You came here to be with me.”

“Yes.”

The hands on Andy’s face gripped even tighter. The fingertips dug into her hair at the sides of her head. “To give yourself to me.”

“Yes.” Even as she said it, even as her mouth curved in triumph, a part of Andy shrieked in disbelief: _this is not happening, this cannot possibly be happening._ But she was standing so close to Miranda that she could feel the heat of her skin, hear her breath, smell the perfume on her skin, faded after a long day. She had her hands on Miranda. Miranda had her hands on her. 

“Accepting a gift,” Miranda said, “is a skill every bit as complicated as giving one.” She was looking steadily, deliberately, into Andy’s eyes.

“I know. I’ve watched you do it,” Andy said. “You’re very gracious about it.”

Miranda’s gaze didn’t waver. “This isn’t the kind of gift one is gracious about,” she said. “This is the kind of gift one devours.”

Andy felt a clench, deep and hot and utterly involuntary, between her legs. She knew that she was as wet as she had ever been in her life. “Yes.”

Miranda did not drop her eyes, and neither did Andy. They stared each other down as if they were measuring each other up in a boxing ring. “You don’t have any idea what you’re asking for,” Miranda said, almost conversationally.

“I think I do,” Andy replied. She didn’t know if this was true, but she was not going to give Miranda any excuse to send her away.

“You don’t,” Miranda repeated. Still, she seemed to be in no hurry to disengage her grip on Andy’s head. “You don’t know what it’s like to be intimate with me. I don’t magically become soft and sweet, Andrea. I am going to demand just as much of you as I ever did. More.”

Andy only nodded. The word _intimate_ , from Miranda’s mouth, almost made her fall over.

“I am possessive, Andrea.”

Andy smiled at what those words did to her. She had thought she was as turned on as it was possible for her to be, but she had been wrong.

“I will ask you to do things that no one has ever asked of you.”

“God, I hope so,” Andy said hoarsely. 

Miranda pulled Andy’s mouth to hers again. This kiss was not tender and exploratory, as the first had been. This was feral. When she was satisfied, she put her lips at Andy’s ear: “I am going to eat you alive, Andrea.” 

“Good,” Andy said. She took the opportunity to tongue hungrily at Miranda’s neck, and when she got an approving sigh she escalated to a nip.

Miranda made a low, husky sound in her throat, and Andy felt her hand flat on the small of her back, pulling their bodies tight together. For a long moment they stood almost completely still, pressed close, listening to each other’s breath. 

Then Miranda stepped back and grabbed the front of Andy’s shirt. “Come,” she ordered, and she pulled Andy toward the door. She let go, but not until Andy was following.

They went silently up another flight of carpeted steps, down a dim hall, through a door. A bedroom. Miranda’s bedroom, mostly white, with a few startling slashes of color: a deep red armchair, a set of dark, rich brown drapes. One lamp, on the bedside table, gave enough light to make the room warm, but left shadows in every corner. Andy’s lips opened involuntarily looking at the bed. That was where her life was going to change. The rest of the room faded out, unimportant.

“Andrea.” Miranda’s voice was firm now, not loud, but commanding, and Andy turned toward her. “Take off your clothes.”

Andy did not hesitate. She unbuttoned, unzipped, drew off. It wasn’t a striptease; she didn’t try to perform; but she moved slowly, deliberately, enjoying the feeling of her skin more and more exposed to the room’s warmth as she removed each item, each layer. Miranda’s attention was everpresent to her, though Andy didn’t so much as glance over at her. She put her clothes on the chair, one piece at a time. When she was wearing only her underwear, she looked at Miranda at last, her thumbs hooked in the waistband of the panties, and waited a beat. She had spent rather a lot of money on this set, and she wanted to get at least a little effect. 

Miranda was examining Andy’s body with the kind of focused attention that she gave a color show or a late-stage run-through. One arm crossed her body, supporting the elbow of the other, and she held one finger to her lips while she gazed. Someone who did not know her might have thought that her expression was merely neutral, even bored, but Andy could discern the fierce pleasure in the corners of eyes and mouth.

“Keep the bra on, I think,” she said thoughtfully, as if she were telling an art director to resize a photo or change a font. Then she met Andy’s eyes, and the challenge there made Andy’s heart skip. “Turn down the bed. And get onto it.”

Then she turned and disappeared through another door. Andy did as she had been directed. The panties joined the rest of her clothes on the chair, and she folded the duvet and sheet carefully down to the foot of the bed. She climbed onto the bed, trying to control her anxiety and anticipation by concentrating on the feel of her hands on the sheets, her knees on the mattress, the pillows behind her back as she settled in.

When Miranda reemerged she had changed into a robe, a dark blue silky robe that clung to her closely enough to make it clear that she wore nothing underneath it. She let her eyes wander appreciatively and evaluatingly over Andy’s mostly naked body, lingering on the spots that seemed to please her most: her belly, her breasts, her mouth, her calves. She settled onto the edge of the bed and touched Andy’s knee, then traced up the outside of her thigh, ghosted over her pubic mound, and traced back down her inner thigh. Andy had to concentrate very hard not to hyperventilate. 

Then Miranda looked up directly into Andy’s eyes. “You are very beautiful,” she said. Her voice was husky and—Andy had to search to name the feeling, so unfamiliar from Miranda—reverent. She put her hand over the curve of Andy’s belly, stroking the soft swell with her thumb. “I can make you almost no promises, Andrea. But I can promise you that this means a great deal to me.”

Andy found that she could barely open her eyes. She was not sleepy, in fact she felt more alert than she’d been walking over in the cold. But her body was heavy. The anxiety she often felt with a new partner—will I please, how does this look, do I seem turned on enough, can I ask—was completely absent. It was as if she’d burned through her capacity to be nervous in getting to this point, and now she could only be, only feel.

Miranda shifted gracefully onto the bed. With slight pressure from the hand on Andy’s knee, she encouraged Andy's legs open and knelt between them. Then she touched. With just the tips of her fingers, she stroked slowly and gently over Andy's entire body, hardly heavier than breath; thighs, crest of hip, slope of belly, ribs, plain between breasts, collarbones, shoulders, upper arms, forearms, and back to neck, jaw, brow. It might not even have seemed sexual if it were not for Miranda's face as she did it. But the hunger there made that soft touch feel like fire licking over Andy's skin, and watching Miranda's eyelids lower and lips part, she felt an ache beginning.

Miranda was just beginning to draw her hands back down Andy's body when Andy felt a tiny prickle on her abdomen. She looked down at herself, and realized with deep tenderness that she had just felt a tear fall. Miranda was not crying, not exactly; the expression on her face was lust and wonder, but her eyes were filled, and as Andy watched another tear fell. 

Andy’s response was instinctive. She raised herself up on her elbows far enough to unclasp her bra, and then she pulled off the last piece of her clothing. She settled back down, fully exposed to Miranda now, offering her nakedness. 

Miranda glanced up and met Andy’s eyes; Andy looked calmly back at her, and reached a hand to stroke Miranda’s hair. “Yours,” she said. “I’m yours.” She took Miranda’s hand from where it rested on her hip and put it between her legs, holding the fingers firmly against her hot and swollen flesh. “Yours,” she said again, less steadily. 

Miranda’s face was still. “I know,” she said. Then she leaned forward and slowly, tenderly, took Andy’s nipple into her mouth.

It didn’t stay slow and tender. Andy’s long, wordless moan as she felt first tongue, then lips, then teeth, seemed to push Miranda to a new place. The pressure of Miranda’s fingers against her vulva became movement, opening her, stroking her, with greater and greater urgency. Andy pumped her hips against Miranda’s hand, and the slick sounds of Andy’s wet cunt sliding along Miranda’s wet fingers smacked loudly between them. 

“Oh God,” Andy heard herself saying. “Oh God. God. Please.” She had never heard anything so desperate as her own voice.

Abruptly Miranda rose up and thrust Andy’s knees apart. She held her open, and she stared at Andy’s cunt with an expression of predatory intensity. Andy whimpered, and Miranda, not looking away from Andy’s swollen, needy sex, said, “I know, Andrea. I know what you need. Patience.” Then she reached with one hand and gave that maddening feather-light stroke to Andy’s inner lips. She smiled slightly at Andy’s groan and continued, fingertips just brushing where Andy wanted strong and rough. Dipped a finger inside, ran the length of her opening; then slowly, slowly traced her clit. Up and back and around her opening again, lingering there.

Andy breathed hoarsely, panting, almost sobbing. 

“Oh, Andrea,” Miranda said, warm. Then she drove her fingers in.

Andy cried out in relief and surprise and ecstasy, knotting her fingers in the sheets beneath her. _God it felt good._ It felt perfect. 

Miranda said conversationally, “Andrea, you are going to come and come and come.” She punctuated each _come_ with a hard thrust. “But not yet. I want to be inside you a good long time.” She closed her eyes briefly and moved deeply, firmly, exploring Andy’s cunt with strong, sure fingers; the sucking and smacking echoed a counterpart to Andy’s panting breath. 

“Yes,” Andy said. “All right. Anything.” She arched her back, offering her breasts; she sank down and rolled her hips to meet Miranda’s hand, wanting more, taking more. 

Miranda’s mouth curled. “Anything,” she repeated. “You may regret that.”

Andy smiled in return, shaking her head. She already knew she would have nothing to regret.


	2. Chapter 2

_Upper East Side_  
_February 2, 2008_

 

Breakfast was, at first, mostly silent. Other than offering coffee and various foodstuffs, Miranda was quiet. She seemed to be thinking, and Andy wasn’t sure she really wanted to know what she was thinking about.

Andy herself was thinking hard. She had never before had an experience like the one she’d had last night, and she was still trying to grapple with what, exactly, made it so extraordinary. 

Physically, certainly, Miranda had been unrelenting. Andy was pretty sure she was going to be sore for a couple of days. She had been caressed, lovingly and tenderly: also scratched, licked, bitten, squeezed, slapped. And fucked. God, had she been fucked. On her back, on her knees, standing in the shower; with two fingers, three fingers, possibly at one point four fingers, an amazing ridged dildo dragged out of a drawer. She’d been fucked slowly and sweetly, while Miranda knelt between her legs with her cheek on Andy’s belly as if in prayer. She’d been fucked rough and fast, holding her knees as wide apart as she could get them, while Miranda stared avariciously at her fingers hammering into Andy’s cunt. 

But it wasn’t just what had happened to her body. She had seen something in Miranda that shook her deeply, because it was so utterly unexpected. Miranda had _wanted_. Miranda had _needed_. Needed her. 

“Are you sore, darling?”

“Mmm,” Andy said. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I loved it, you know I did.”

“I’m sorry,” Miranda corrected her, raising an eyebrow, “because I’d like to fuck you again. Right now. But if you’re in pain …”

Andy laughed. “I don’t think I could ever be in that much pain.” And just moments later, she was lying on her front across the kitchen table, borrowed robe hiked up over her hips, Miranda buried in her and pushing with the weight of her whole body. Then pulling back, just enough to make Andy groan with the loss of that deepest touch, and pushing back in. 

Andy held on to the edges of the table, put her cheek to the cool surface, and closed her eyes. “Oh God that’s good,” she breathed, as Miranda squelched firmly into her. It did hurt, but it was the best hurt she’d ever felt. “So good. So good.” 

Miranda rocked in and out, in and out, and Andy lost herself in the feeling.

“Can you come like this, Andrea?” Miranda’s voice was deceptively calm and even, but Andy could hear her breath, which rasped raggedly. 

“Um …” Andy tried to focus on the question. She didn’t usually climax from penetration alone; she hadn’t tried to last night, when Miranda was only too eager to add her other hand, her mouth, Andy’s own fingers. But this—it was so much sensation, so many different kinds of sensation—“Maybe. Just don’t stop, don’t stop.”

“I won’t.”

“And steady. Just like that.”

“All right.” 

And for the next unmeasurable length of time, Miranda didn’t stop. She lifted herself off Andy long enough to pour something cool and slick onto her fingers even as she kept them moving, and Andy groaned gratefully—she really was very sore. Then she returned her focus to her cunt. Miranda’s weight. Miranda’s fingers. The slide and the wet sounds and the bloom of pleasure-pain with every stroke. And yes, there, at Miranda’s fingertips, she began to feel the build of tension and sharp, sweet ecstasy that swelled and swelled until she could feel that it was ready to break over her. 

“Push,” she begged, lifting her head and arching into Miranda’s touch. “Just push, deep, all your weight, please …” Miranda did just as she asked, filling her and drilling into the center of her body; and with that pressure came the hot flood. Miranda’s firm, unrelenting touch milked each pulse of nerve and muscle for every bit of pleasure, and Andy cried out hoarsely, inchoately, again and again.

As the contractions of Andy’s cunt faded, Miranda eased up and, checking in with an inquiring sound that was met with a shaky nod from Andy, slid out. Andy lay for several moments longer, letting her heart slow. Finally she pushed herself up on her elbows. She was still breathing hard. “Wow.”

“Wow indeed.” Miranda, sitting in a kitchen chair, looked pleased with herself.

“What did you—?” Andy could feel that her thighs were slippery.

“Olive oil.”

“Ah. Clever.”

“I’m a clever woman.”

Andy pushed herself up to standing, slowly. “I never doubted it,” she said. She walked over to the sink, not because she actually needed anything but just to move her wobbly legs. She turned on the water to wash her hands.

She felt Miranda come up behind her, close but not quite touching her. “You are a revelation, Andrea,” she heard, so quiet that she was not entirely sure she’d caught it correctly. Then, if anything even lower, “I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself after you leave.”

Andy turned and put her arms around Miranda. She had not gotten used to the reality of their physical connection, the fact that Miranda was actually significantly smaller than she was, and it surprised her anew. She said, into Miranda’s neck, “You're going to do your work with the same focus and drive that you always do, and when you have a few minutes between meetings and appointments, you’re going to think up even crazier things to do to me the next time you see me.”

Miranda's body went very, very still. Finally she said, “Do you think that’s wise.”

“What?”

“A next time.”

Andy smiled. She had expected this in some form. Pulling her head back so that she could look Miranda full in the face, she said, “I don't care if it’s wise. It’s what I’m going to do.”

Miranda looked at her steadily and let the silence stretch a moment. “I am not easy,” she said at last, “and I cannot give you what you deserve.”

Andy grinned. “I just got what I deserve. And it was pretty awesome.”

Miranda shook her head slightly. “Don't make light of this, Andrea. I am too old for you and too…” She searched for the word. “Rigid, I suppose. I cannot be a partner to you. My life does not allow for much more than”—she gestured between them—“this.”

Andy reached up and touched the back of Miranda’s neck, stroking her gently. “This is what I want,” she said, and kissed Miranda’s mouth. “Right now this is all I need. If that changes,” she shrugged, “then I’ll tell you.”

Miranda was silent a moment. “It will change,” she said. 

“Mmm.” Andy made a noncommittal noise and kissed her again. 

“This is going to be a disaster,” Miranda said, kissing her back.

“Probably,” Andy agreed, teasing Miranda’s lips open with her tongue.

A few moments later, Miranda gasped, pushed Andy back, and said, “I should make you leave. Now.”

“Should you,” Andy said, not a question, and dropped to her knees.

She pushed aside Miranda’s robe and there, right in front of her, was the swell of Miranda’s mons at the graceful intersection of hip crests and adductor muscles, the sly cleft concealing the secret sex within. Andy leaned forward and drew her face across the pubic curls, reveling in the rich scent of an aroused woman. She stroked her hands up the backs of Miranda’s thighs, ending with her hands firm on Miranda’s ass. Then she parted Miranda’s labia with her tongue, searching for and finding her clit, dancing slowly over, around, along ...

She felt the thighs pressed against her chest begin to tremble. “I can’t,” Miranda rasped, and only a moment later she joined Andy on the floor. This, Andy decided, was even better. She put her thumbs on Miranda’s labia and pushed them apart, opening her vulva to her gaze. “So pretty,” she murmured, taking a long moment to enjoy what she was seeing. It was new, this extended look at another woman’s sex, and what she saw was astonishingly beautiful, a whirl of a thousand shades of pink and red. There was the smooth and shining head of the clitoris peeking from its thick hood; sweeping away from it in a V were the dark inner lips, and swelling between them, the bright glistening entrance to Miranda’s body, inviting her. 

She leaned down and touched the tip of her tongue to the hot tender tip of Miranda’s clit, smiling at the gasping sigh and jerk of hips she received. Then she took the body of the clit in its sheath between her lips, gently sucked, pulled, scraped her teeth across it. Immediately Miranda’s fingers threaded into her hair, holding her in place. 

Andy sucked and tongued, brought a hand up and touched, listened, felt Miranda’s movements. She was already learning some of the secrets. Miranda’s clit was different from Andy’s own, smaller and neater and responsive to direct, rhythmic pressure. While Andy’s mouth was on her she liked a thumb circling her entrance, teasing and stimulating, as much as or more than she liked Andy inside. This, Andy decided, was a beat she would be happy to cover on an extended basis.

Twenty minutes later, they were both sprawled on the kitchen floor, Andy’s head on Miranda’s abdomen, Miranda’s fingers still laced in Andy’s hair. “I have to get up,” Miranda said, not moving to get up. “I’m too old to have sex on the floor. And I’m certainly too old to lie on the floor afterward.”

“Mmm,” Andy hummed agreeably. She couldn’t say she was really enjoying the lying-on-the-floor part either, and after a moment she clambered to her hands and knees and offered a hand up to Miranda.

When they were both standing again, they eyed each other with rapidly dwindling bravado (Andy) and increasing inscrutability (Miranda).

“I guess I’ll get dressed,” Andy said at last.

Miranda merely nodded, so Andy went upstairs and collected her various garments, finding everything except her bra. She distinctly remembered dropping it next to the bed, but it wasn’t there. Well, she would be wearing a coat anyway, so it hardly mattered to her modesty, and the bra had done its job. If Miranda’s housekeeper found it—well, she’d let that be Miranda’s problem. She thought it more likely, anyway, that her bra had been silently claimed as a trophy, and she liked that idea enough that she wasn’t going to say anything about it.

(Nine years later, searching for a pair of stockings, she would find the bra tucked carefully into a middle drawer of Miranda’s lingerie chest.)

She walked slowly back down the stairs and returned to the kitchen. Miranda was reading _The New York Times_ at the kitchen table that Andy had been panting and keening on half an hour ago. At least, Miranda was looking at the _Times_ ; she was, however, still on the same page she’d been reading before she’d put Andy on her belly. A warm thread of renewed confidence came worming up through Andy’s chest and lit her smile. Miranda was distracted, completely and thoroughly distracted, and Andy was the reason. 

“So,” Andy said, before she could let her flutter of optimism get away, “let’s make a plan.”

Miranda glanced up, that infinitesimal brow-arch expressing a weary disdain for such foolishness—but she had glanced up very, very quickly. “What plan?”

“For the next time we see each other.”

“I told you—”

“That it’s a terrible idea, yeah, I heard you.” Andy grinned. “I just don’t believe you. And even if I did, who cares?”

Miranda let the scornful disbelief show plainly on her face, the expression that made art directors cry and account executives quit. Andy could barely restrain herself from laughing. She put her hands on the table, directly on Miranda’s paper, leaned down and kissed her. “Next Friday,” she murmured. “Right here. We’ll have takeout, and then each other.”

“By next Friday,” Miranda said thoughtfully, “I will either have left _Runway_ or I’ll own it.”

Andy gasped.

“Did you think I was going to let that troglodyte sell the magazine out from under me?” Miranda’s lips curled. “The Pritchard Group. Really. Well, if they buy it, they’ll be buying an empty shell. I’ve already set up the legal and corporate structure for an entirely new publication, as well as done some preliminary design work, and every employee of _Runway_ will be working there by the end of next week if Irv Ravitz insists on wasting what I’ve built on a chop shop like Pritchard.” She took a sip of her coffee and looked thoroughly satisfied. “Of course, it would be preferable not to have to abandon the brand. My first choice is to force him to sell to the investment group I’ve assembled, and I think the board will probably go along with me.”

Andy could feel that her mouth was not quite closed. “What—? How—?” She dropped gracelessly onto the chair next to Miranda’s. “Are you telling me that you both set up a completely new magazine—”

“And website. Digital isn’t optional any more.” 

“ _And_ put together a multimillion-dollar deal with several parties, in the space of what, ten days?”

“It was closer to two weeks,” Miranda said calmly, “and you must remember, this or something like this has been threatening _Runway_ for years. I wasn’t unprepared.”

Andy stared at her, mind churning. No wonder Miranda had been exhausted. And no wonder she had also been ready to let herself be rewarded.

“I don’t need to tell you that this is off the record,” Miranda said, with a little more sharpness, giving Andy the skin-singeing over-the-glasses glare that had so terrified her when she was Miranda’s assistant. 

Andy sighed. “No, you don’t,” she said. “There’s no way I can write this story anyway. Good God, I want to fire myself just contemplating the ethical conflicts.”

The corner of Miranda’s mouth twitched slightly. “But you can tell Keisha Lowe to call me. I’ll talk to her.”

Andy goggled. “Really?” That would wipe out the favor she now owed Keisha, and raise her one. 

“Really,” Miranda said. “She seems to have done me a good turn.” She turned back to her newspaper, picking it up and giving it a shake to straighten it. “Now go, Andrea.”

Andy smiled. She was tempted to lean in and kiss Miranda one more time, give her a nip on the earlobe—but that would be gilding the lily. No one understood or appreciated the value of restraint more than Miranda Priestly did; no one loathed seeing things overdone more than she did, either. So Andy stood and, as she left the kitchen with just a little more movement in her hips than was strictly necessary, said over her shoulder, “Goodbye, Miranda. I had a lovely time.”

Miranda’s chuckle was the most delicious recompense Andy could have asked for. And then, as if casually, Miranda added the gratuity: “I’ll see you Friday.”

 

  


_Full meeting of the Elias-Clark board_  
_Midtown_  
_February 8, 2008_

 

Irving Ravitz was purple with rage. “You can’t do that,” he said to Miranda, who looked at him with calm contempt. “Those employees have contracts, and the contracts are with Elias-Clark. Not with you, not with _Runway_. With Elias-Clark.”

“They do,” Miranda affirmed graciously. “But those contracts do not state that they can’t leave. That would be a violation of not only state and federal labor law but also the Constitution.” She went on blithely, “They would give up severance and continuation of benefits, I believe. Under other circumstances that would be a hardship. They will, however, be hired immediately in comparable positions at my new company, which coincidentally will be offering hiring bonuses in exactly the amounts of the severance lost.”

The representative of the Pritchard Group shifted uncomfortably.

A white-haired, gray-suited man who had served two eight-year terms on the Elias-Clark board, and who had seen variations on this scene more often than he liked to remember, coughed and said, “I believe we ought to reconsider the wisdom of selling _Runway_ at all. It is, after all, a valuable—”

“No,” Miranda interrupted. “The magazine has been dangled in front of Wall Street like a piñata. For _Runway_ to remain part of Elias-Clark now is to allow the assumption that it was _unable_ to be sold because of some weakness or secret structural problem. That would cause irreparable damage to the magazine’s reputation and financial foundation. And I don’t need to remind you all that you have a fiduciary duty to maximize the value of this company.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I don’t see, then,” finally, from another gray-suited gentleman, “that we have much choice but to enter into negotiations with Ms. Priestly’s group.” He glanced down at the offer sheet in front of him. “Uh, Dentata Investments Inc.”

Miranda, who had been persuaded only with great difficulty to forgo the initial Vagina in the name, smiled. It was turning out to be a good day. And later, she had a date. A _very_ good day.

 

  


_Stone Street Tavern_  
_Financial District_  
_March 2008_

 

“Hey there! Sorry I’m a little late.”

“No problem. Good to see you. Caitlin says hi.”

“Tell her hello from me, too. And thank her again for dinner.”

“It was our pleasure, Andy, really.”

“I don’t think anyone’s cooked dinner for me since—well, not for a long time.”

“You look terrific. You’re seeing somebody, aren’t you?”

“What? What makes you say that?”

“First, because you’re kind of glowing and you have a dumb, sappy smile on your face. Second, because the last time I saw you, you told me you weren’t going to waste money on a new bag when you had no one to impress, and that is definitely a new bag. And third, because I’m ninety percent certain that mark above your collarbone was made by someone’s teeth.”

“Oh God.”

“Don’t bother putting your hand over it now. Too late.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

“It’s cute. You’re blushing. Who’s the lucky lady? Or gentleman, I guess—you’re ecumenical, right?”

“There’s not. I mean, I can’t. It isn’t anybody.”

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business. I’m just glad to see you’re getting over Miranda.”

(Long pause.)

“Oh my God. It’s Miranda.”

“Jules, please don’t—”

“I’m not saying a damn thing to anyone. I won’t even tell Caitlin if you don’t want me to. But screw the bourbon, this calls for champagne.”

“Oh, come on. That makes me feel like some creepy guy high-fiving his frat brother over a conquest.”

“It’s not on your account, hon. The celebration is for her.”

 

  


_Prune_  
_East 1st Street between 1st and 2nd_  
_August 2008_

 

It was hard to get into Prune on a Friday night but Andy’s date had managed it, and she supposed she ought to feel some sort of pleasure in that. Everything was tasty and beautifully plated, and the wine was perfect, and Mike, or maybe his name was Mark, was presentably good-looking and reasonably entertaining. And yet. Andy suspected that Miranda had had the kind of effect on her standards of human companionship that cocaine did on dopamine receptors: Having become accustomed to the action of a particularly powerful incitation, the mechanism loses its ability to respond to normal stimuli. After seven months of Miranda, Andy was no longer capable of enjoying the company of an ordinary person.

She continued to try, mostly because Miranda insisted on it. Miranda had not mellowed on the notion that she was completely wrong for Andy in every way and that she would not let Andy commit herself to a person who was too much older, too burdened, too scarred, and ultimately unavailable. Andy had to admit she had a point. She therefore gamely went on dates with people who didn’t interest her. She even slept with a couple of them, which was even more disappointing than when she was eight years old and The Most Terrifying Ride Of Your Life! had turned out to be a sad trolley clanking through stuffy darkness punctuated by flashing lights.

So she sipped a very fine red and tried to be interested in the career ambitions of a twenty-eight-year-old banker, or maybe broker. She had determined within the first ten minutes that this was not someone she was going to waste her time having sex with, but he was her mother’s best friend’s nephew so she couldn’t simply ditch him even if she’d been desperate to. And she wasn’t. He was nice. Perfectly nice. She kept herself from grinding her teeth.

Then suddenly she felt something electric, and when she looked up past Mike’s (Mark’s?) shoulder, she saw people emerging from the single semi-private room downstairs. Four of them, sleek and assured and very well-dressed, and the last of them a commanding white-haired woman who caught Andy’s eye, and burned. 

There wasn’t much there for any outside observer to notice. A look only slightly longer than that given to any of the strangers in the room. A minuscule flare of nostrils, the quickest jump of an eyebrow. 

“Shit,” Andy muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Somebody you know?” Mark (Mike?) asked, twisting around to look. 

“No. Yes. Please don’t,” Andy groaned, but it was too late; Mark/Mike had seen Miranda, and worse, Miranda had seen him. This time, no one could have mistaken the look of furious hate she leveled on him.

He looked back at Andy, clearly a little panicked. “What the ...?”

“I need to go deal with this,” she said, throwing her napkin on the table and standing up. “Sorry, Mark.” 

She heard him say, “It’s Mike, actually,” as she threaded through the tables after Miranda.

Out on the sidewalk it was just beginning to spit rain, but the heavy, thick heat still pressed down. “Miranda,” Andy said, and Miranda turned to her, face pale and eyes dark.

“Andrea,” Miranda replied, and Andy could tell even in those three syllables that she was in a rage, but also completely miserable.

“What was that?” Andy asked, voice low in deference to Miranda’s company. Her bafflement was genuine, but she laid it on thick.

Miranda took a step, two steps, away from the people she was with, toward Andy. “What was _that_?” she snarled in a whisper, nodding back at the restaurant.

“A date,” Andy said, perversely glad that she could wound Miranda with such a simple truth. “The kind you’re always telling me to go on.”

“I don’t believe I told you, ‘Please find a callow oaf and parade him around.’ ”

Andy threw up her hands, suddenly and unexpectedly enraged. She had come out here to placate, but between Miranda’s sarcasm and the oppression of the sticky heat, her forbearance vanished. “Miranda,” she hissed, “you don’t get to have absolutely no responsibility to me and then expect me to pine for you in my apartment on Friday night.” 

“I don’t expect that. I simply don’t need to see this,” Miranda snapped.

Andy gave a snort of completely humorless laughter. “Do you think I wanted you to? Do you think I set it up?” 

“I can’t begin to know.” This was icy Miranda, remote Miranda, Miranda removing herself from the situation and the conversation before it could begin. 

But tonight, Andy was not having it. Her eyes narrowed. “How would I even have known where you’d be tonight? It’s not as if we ever have any conversation other than ‘how fast’ and ‘how hard’ and ‘how many fingers.’ ” 

Miranda became instantly glassy and stiff. “That is not true.”

“Right, sorry,” Andy said, “there’s also ‘Wear that lingerie I sent you’ and ‘Don’t get here until after eight so no one I care about sees you.’ ” Things were coming out of Andy’s mouth that she hadn’t even realized she was thinking. Was it the half-bottle of pinot noir talking? It was disorienting and yet weirdly freeing: as if someone next to her but disconnected from her was using her vocal cords to speak. 

Something extraordinary happened on Miranda’s face. She went from pinched to flushed to empty to hard in the space of a second and a half. Then she took two steps forward and seized Andy by the shoulders. Andy was sure that she was going to slap her, scream at her, or worse, talk at her in that deadly calm polite way she had when she was truly, coldly, terrifyingly angry. In any case, it was certain, absolutely certain, that whatever they had had was over, finished, dust. Andy had broken it, as she had always feared she might.

It took Andy a beat to realize that what Miranda was doing was kissing her. By the time it registered, her body had already responded, and the brief volcano of Andy’s rage had been extinguished by Miranda’s mouth.

_She is kissing me,_ Andy thought, _in front of her friends. On the sidewalk in front of a restaurant. There could be anyone, there probably is someone, people have cell phones and photographers follow her and oh my God, we are kissing on the sidewalk._

Miranda released her, finally, and Andy could grab a breath, but Miranda was saying, quietly but firmly, “I want you to stop going on dates with other people.”

“Okay,” Andy said, dazed. 

“Andrea,” Miranda said, and hesitated. Then she lifted her chin as if urging herself forward. “I asked you to tell me if you weren’t happy with how things were.”

“I didn’t ... know,” Andy said, still only half functional. “Not until I started talking.”

“Well,” Miranda said, “perhaps you should talk more, then.”

This time Andy’s laughter was genuine. “Wow, Miranda, that could be really, really dangerous.”

Miranda, who was still holding Andy’s shoulders, shook her, gently and somehow affectionately. “Not as dangerous as saying nothing, clearly. I think we should—I’d like you to come home with me.” She glanced over her shoulder at her dinner companions, who were standing in a shocked knot, not even making a pretense of doing anything other than staring. She sighed. “I had better deal with this. Can you extract yourself from what’s-his-name?” 

“Yes, all right,” Andy said, with not the slightest idea how she was going to do so. “What are you going to tell them?”

“As little as possible,” Miranda said, and turned to face her music.

 

It was simpler than Andy could have hoped. Mike had been able to see the sidewalk from their table. “So,” he said, “when you said ‘It’s complicated’ earlier, I guess that was the complication, huh?”

Andy laughed shakily. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s about as complicated as it gets. And I’m really sorry but—” 

“You have to go,” Mike said. He smiled. He really was a very nice guy, Andy thought gratefully. 

She bent to pick up her purse, and then said, somewhat awkwardly, “Listen, do you think you could maybe keep this ...” She trailed off, shamefaced. 

But Mike was nodding. “Of course. Don’t worry. This isn’t going to reach Cincinnati through me.” He hesitated, then said, “But it probably will reach Cincinnati. You know that, right? I mean, I’m not much into celebrity culture but even I know who”—he gestured outdoors—“she is.”

Andy sighed. “Yeah. I’d just rather it came from me, on my own time.”

He smiled again, even wider, and she noticed that he had really adorable dimples. “One of these days I’ll get my courage up and tell my aunt that I’m gay as a day in May, and she can stop setting me up with women. But, on my own time.” He put out his hand. “I get it, Andy. Good luck.”

Andy burst out laughing and accepted the handshake. “You too, Mike.”

 

The ride to Miranda’s was mostly silent, but surprisingly calm. 

Andy said at last, “I suppose this is going to be ... a thing, now.”

“Yes, it will be a _thing_.” Miranda leaned on Andy’s declassé vocabulary, but she was not being cutting, merely resigned. She looked out the window at the street sliding past, and said, in a low voice, “It’s something of a relief, really.”

“A relief?” Andy couldn’t imagine what Miranda meant.

“I have not enjoyed keeping you a secret,” Miranda said, still looking out the window. 

This was such a surprise that Andy couldn’t think of a thing to say in response. But she began to observe Miranda’s uncertainty at having said it: her quick sideways glance at Andy, then down at her hands, then back out the window; a deep, quiet, but uneven breath.

So Andy scrambled desperately and filled the stretching silence with, “I, I, um, I didn’t realize that.” Miranda brought her eyes back into the car, but only down to her hands, and Andy went on, “I mean I didn’t think you were _enjoying_ it, but I guess I didn’t think it was hard. Or something you didn’t want to do. I just thought, I guess I just thought, well, that’s how it had to be.” She heard her own stumbling repetitions and qualifications and thought bitterly, _Slick, Andy, slick. Way to put the woman at her ease._

“It has to be that way,” Miranda said, finally lifting her eyes to Andy’s, “if we are not ... If there is not a ‘we.’ If what we are is two people having sex, and nothing more.” There was a challenge in her face, a question that she was too proud to ask.

Andy swallowed. This, too, might break the thing between them, but she couldn’t lie about it. “It’s never been just that. Not for me.” To her relief she felt Miranda relax fractionally, though she could not have pinpointed what she had seen that made her feel it. “I didn’t say anything because I knew you didn’t want more. Or I thought you didn’t.”

“I don’t want it to be more. But it is.”

Andy was both deeply hurt by this and hugely, ecstatically encouraged. “You wish you could quit me, huh?” she said, trying to be light about it.

“I wish _you_ would quit _me_ ,” Miranda returned. Her look was steady and serious. “I am a disaster waiting to happen for you, Andrea. I am a waste of your time and your youth. If I were a better person—” She faltered and looked quickly away and out the window again. “But I’m not.” Very quietly: “I’m not strong enough.”

Andy reached over and took Miranda’s hand in her own, stroking her with her thumb. “Good,” she said, firmly. They rode the rest of the way in silence, knowing that they were speeding toward a renegotiation of the compact between them, of their entire lives.

Miranda’s house was uncharacteristically well lit, and not silent; there was the faint murmur of a television from an upper floor. Andy cocked her head and looked at Miranda inquiringly. 

“The girls are upstairs,” Miranda said, as casually as if she were saying “There’s wine in the fridge.”

Andy goggled. In seven months she’d never been in the house at the same time as Miranda’s twins. She and Miranda had never even had a direct conversation about them; Miranda referred to them obliquely, and Andy didn’t mention them at all. “Oh,” Andy finally said faintly.

“Come on,” Miranda said, and she led them up. She took Andy briskly into the door of the den, a room Andy had only ever glanced into. Caroline and Cassidy were sprawled on the floor and looked up with mild curiosity.

“Do you remember Andrea,” Miranda said, not making it a question. “She used to work for me. We ran into each other at dinner.” Completely true, utterly misleading.

“Hi,” one of the girls said.

“Half an hour,” Miranda said. “Then the TV goes off.”

They both grimaced and returned their full attention to the screen, obviously determined to get the most of what they were allowed. 

“I want you in bed in an hour,” Miranda said. “You have swim lessons early tomorrow.” The twins nodded, their body language saying, _We know, Mom, leave us alone already._

“Good night, girls.” Miranda indicated _out_ with her head, and she and Andy were back in the hall unscathed.

“What are you going to tell them in the morning?” Andy whispered. 

“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it,” Miranda whispered back. “None of this had a plan.”

Tell me about it, Andy thought.

 

Miranda didn’t turn on the lights in her bedroom. Instead she walked over to the window, drew the curtain aside, and stood, arms folded, looking into the street as if she were actually interested in something outside.

Andy sat on the edge of the bed and waited. It would not help, she knew, to ask questions at this point; whatever Miranda had to say, she needed to find her own way to say. 

“There’s something else I should tell you before you invest anything further in me.” It sounded casual, conversational, but Andy could read the brittle stiffness with which Miranda held herself.

Miranda said, “My mother.” She stopped, swallowed, started again. “My mother died quite young. Young for these days, anyway. She was seventy-three.” She looked steadily out the window. “It was Alzheimer’s. Or something indistinguishable from it. It was really ... quite awful, at the end.”

Andy stood swiftly and moved behind Miranda, putting her hands loosely at Miranda’s hips, testing Miranda’s willingness to yield. She didn’t relax into Andy, but she didn’t pull away, either, so Andy moved closer still, bringing their bodies together, and drew her arms around her lover. 

“She wasn’t well educated,” Miranda went on, still in a dreadfully even, pleasant tone. “But she was brilliant in her own way. She loved language. When I was small we would play games with words, rhyming, making up definitions. And then, what she became.” She was silent for long enough that Andy began to think she was finished. “What she became was small, spiteful, and frightened, and she lost the ability to communicate in any but the most basic way.”

Andy pulled Miranda back close against her and put her hand under her blouse, palm flat on her chest. She held her there a moment, feeling Miranda’s heart beat steadily against her open hand. _I will be forty-eight when she is seventy-three,_ Andy thought. _Younger than she is now._ “You aren’t your mother,” Andy said finally.

“Not yet,” Miranda said.

“Maybe not ever.” Andy touched Miranda’s ear with her lips, and went on, “Miranda, there are things that will be hard. There are things that are already hard. We don’t need to go looking for more hard things.”

“Andrea, you’re twenty-six years old.”

“I’m twenty- _eight_ ,” Andy murmured into the back of Miranda’s neck.

“Everything and anything is in front of you,” Miranda went on, ignoring her. 

“Yes, everything,” Andy agreed, squeezing the woman in front of her.

“I’m being serious,” Miranda said, exasperated.

Andy spun her around so that they were face to face. “So am I,” she said. “Miranda, all we know we have is now. And what I want now is this. Is you.” 

“You’re going to wake up in ten years—”

“Having had ten really fantastic years,” Andy interrupted. “And then I might get another ten really fantastic years. Or I might not. I might get hit by a bus ten _days_ from now. You might, I don’t know, get shot by a crazy designer.” 

“That’s not at all unlikely,” Miranda muttered.

Andy put her hands on Miranda’s hips and looked earnestly into her eyes, unable to read their expression fully in the low light. “I know that if something happened to either one of us, and we hadn’t tried to make this work, it would be the greatest regret of my life. And I’d much rather regret something that I did than something that I didn’t do.”

Miranda stood silent for a moment, her arms crossed tightly over her body, then took a deep breath and leaned forward into Andy, letting her head fall onto Andy’s shoulder. “I want to believe you,” she said raggedly. “But it’s irresponsible of me. You don’t know—”

“Of course I know,” Andy said into her ear. “I have known you for almost four years, Miranda. You aren’t easy. Your life isn’t easy. I’m not going to change you. But I am choosing you.”

Miranda sniffed, and Andy realized with a frisson of horror that she was crying. “The girls,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I don’t know,” Andy said. “I don’t know who I’ll be to them. But we’ll figure it out.” She realized impatiently that all Miranda was going to do was stand there and object, unless Andy changed the conversation. “We’ll figure it out,” she said again, taking Miranda’s head in her hands and kissing her on the mouth. She came in soft, just touching Miranda’s lips, but as soon as Miranda responded she moved in more insistently. She teased Miranda’s mouth open and seized it with tongue and teeth; she released her mouth only to stake other claims, nipping an earlobe, nibbling down Miranda’s neck. Moving back up the other side, she growled into Miranda’s ear, “You’re mine, do you get that?”

Miranda made a soft surprised sound. Apparently she didn’t.

“I’ve been yours all this time and we both know it.” She bit into the muscle of Miranda’s neck, less gently. “But you’re mine too.” She felt an unfamiliar relaxation in Miranda’s body and inside she crowed triumphantly. 

She started to unbutton Miranda’s blouse with impatient fingers. Miranda raised her own hands, to help her or to stop her, but Andy batted them away. “No,” she said, into Miranda’s mouth as she kissed her again, still more urgently. Then she was pushing Miranda down onto the bed, rucking up her skirt and pressing her thigh between Miranda’s. As soon as Miranda began to respond in earnest, moving her hips to meet Andy’s weight, Andy went back to pulling and tearing at her clothes. It was not graceful, it was frankly slightly savage, but it was effective; within a couple of minutes Andy was dropping Miranda’s panties over the side of the bed and pulling her own dress off over her head. 

Miranda had not said a word through the frantic undressing. It was hard to see her expression, but her breath had a faint whine in every inhale, and she was giving Andy everything she wanted. When Andy covered her with her own naked body, Miranda lifted her hips into her, a silent acquiescent plea.

Andy kissed her fiercely, licked, sucked, bit, grabbed, squeezed. She murmured half-nonsense into the crook of Miranda’s neck as she took her nipples in her fingers: “God I need you, have to have you, gonna take you ...” It was the last that got a mewling sob out of Miranda, and Andy grinned as she rolled and pinched Miranda’s nipples stiff, rubbed her thigh against Miranda’s increasingly wet cunt, sucked and bit and scraped her neck, shoulders, breasts. 

Then she lifted herself off Miranda and opened the nightstand drawer. The toys were almost always used by Miranda on Andy; the few times Andy had ventured to fuck Miranda with a dildo it had been at Miranda’s instigation, and a pleasantly mutual endeavor. The object Andy chose certainly could be used that way, but that wasn’t what she had in mind. She also grabbed a bottle of lube and tossed it on the bed. She didn’t think they’d actually need it, but extra wet and sloppy might be just the thing tonight.

Then she raised herself up on her knees, staring down at Miranda, and slowly pushed the short, thick-knobbed end of the double-headed toy into herself. She fumbled for the bottle, still looking only at Miranda, and spread a generous amount onto the longer, phallic end of the dildo. “Open up for me,” she ordered, hoarse but unwavering. “Spread your legs for me.”

And Miranda did. She put the back of her hand over her own mouth, and she opened her legs, and she shut her eyes. She usually did. But Andy wasn’t willing to let her, not tonight. She brought her body over Miranda’s, leaning on one arm while she held the cock between her legs with the other, and she said, urgently, “Open your eyes. Look at me.” 

The light was dim, but it was enough to see the shine of Miranda’s eyes as she opened and looked. Andy kissed her, just a breath of lips over her mouth, and brought the tip of the dildo to Miranda’s cunt. She let her hips move while she maneuvered the cock with her hand, feeling it inside her and against her and also sliding slick over Miranda’s clit, and she dropped her head toward the crook of Miranda’s neck. She heard Miranda’s moan right in her ear and felt her hands clutching her back, and with a thrust of hips and hand she entered her.

It was awkward and clumsy and much more difficult than Andy’d imagined. She had to keep her hand on the bottom of the dildo to hold it inside herself and be able to fuck hard enough into Miranda, and it took a few moments of start-and-stop positioning and repositioning to find the right angle. She lowered herself more fully and heavily onto Miranda, exulting in holding Miranda down with her whole body, pushing into her with the strength of her legs.

And at last, they found the right connection of their bodies, Miranda’s legs wrapped around Andy’s waist and her heels digging into Andy’s ass; Andy’s hair fell in a thick curtain around Miranda’s face and made a private chamber for their breath, their gasps, Miranda’s whimpering cries and Andy’s grunts. 

After several sweaty minutes Andy rose up on an elbow to be sure Miranda’s eyes were still open, still looking at her. “Keep your eyes open,” she commanded. “I want you to see me. I want you to know who’s got you.” 

Miranda nodded, just enough for Andy to see the motion of her head. “Yes,” she breathed, her voice almost lost in their frantic breath, the bed creaking under them, the wet suck and slap of the cock pulling out and driving in. “I’m yours.”

Andy dropped her head back down, her cheek resting against Miranda’s, and fucked her even harder. The tiny thready sobs that Miranda gasped out with every deep thrust told Andy that what she was doing was perfect. 

“I’m so close,” Miranda gasped into Andy’s ear.

Andy took her hand off the dildo and put both her arms under Miranda, holding her hard to herself; she clenched her legs into one powerful unit and pushed her hips into the cradle Miranda was making with her spread legs, focusing on _smooth_ and _steady_ and _deep_. 

Then Miranda was keening, clutching Andy with her arms and her legs, clutching her against her body so tightly that Andy could hardly thrust. She kept moving, though, as best she could, digging her toes into the mattress to keep rocking into Miranda, wanting to give Miranda every last slick pump to bring her all the way over and through. 

And then finally Miranda let go, completely; she sagged into the bed, murmuring, “Stop, stop, just hold ... hold inside me, just like that,” and Andy did, stroking Miranda’s sweaty face and kissing her oh so gently on her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her chin. 

“I’ve never done that before,” Miranda said at last, with only the faintest quiver remaining in her voice. “Come like that.”

“Like what?” Andy nuzzled her shoulder.

“Just being fucked. I’ve always had to use my hand too.”

“Or mine,” Andy reminded her.

Miranda actually laughed. “Or yours. But that too ... No one else has ever been able to do that for me.”

“Really?” Andy was absurdly pleased.

“Really,” Miranda confirmed. “And now I think you’ve got to pull out or I’m going to get very sore.”

Andy did so, pulling the dildo out of herself as well with a tiny smacking sound, and dropped it over the side of the bed. Then she rolled them both over so that Miranda was lying partly on top of her.

“Darling, you didn’t ... I don’t know if I am capable of reciprocating. You really ...” Miranda trailed off, suddenly sounding sleepy.

“I got everything I wanted,” Andy assured her, stroking her hair, and it was true. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this joyful after sex. She knew, hazily, that this had been a test of some kind, though whether for her or for Miranda she wasn’t sure. She did know that it had been completely right for this moment and that things would be different tomorrow. Not radically different, perhaps not even noticeably different on a day-to-day level—but what she had just taken, what Miranda had just given, made them not only lovers but partners.

She imagined a question from an insincere wide-eyed reporter, possibly on a red carpet: _And when did you know you were truly committed to each other? Oh, it was clear the first time I fucked her with a Feeldoe._ She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

Miranda breathed slow and quiet; she was asleep. For the first time in months—possibly for the first time since she laid eyes on Miranda Priestly—Andy was completely content.

 

  


_Upper East Side_  
_June 1, 2018_

 

Andy had thought that Miranda was being a lunatic when she insisted on moving their anniversary. “No one has an anniversary in February, Andrea, for God’s sake.” That this was an anniversary only they celebrated, or even knew about, was beside the point.

But Andy had to admit it was much more enjoyable to be able to be out on their own roof deck in early summer than it would be to brave the bitter cold to go to a restaurant in midwinter. The moon was still nearly full, the night air pleasantly cool after a warm day. Andy now privately congratulated herself for saying, “Okay, sure, Miranda,” rather than pointing out the absurdity of the suggestion.

In three weeks they would celebrate again, this time the very public anniversary. That too had been a Miranda fiat. They’d watched the coverage of the DOMA decision as it was announced, and as soon as it was clear that it was everything they’d hoped it would be, Miranda had pulled out her phone and opened her calendar. “What do you think of the twenty-first? Or the twenty-eighth. Either would work.” When Andy looked baffled, Miranda had clarified, “Of June. For the wedding.”

“What wedding?”

“Our wedding, of course.”

Andy’s brain rolled around in the many crazinesses of that statement, and finally she’d raised the least important: “Honey, we can’t get married on the twenty-first. It’s already the twenty-sixth.”

Miranda had looked at her as if she had grown a second, mentally deficient head. “Of next year, darling. Even we can’t plan a wedding in two days.”

At that point Andy did object. She was hardly a traditionalist, but she was not going to plunge into planning a wedding that she had not been formally invited to. And though Miranda had pursed her lips and lifted that condescending eyebrow, she had in fact come through beautifully in the end: She’d waited just long enough for Andy to have pretty much forgotten, and then she’d been unexpectedly, unapologetically romantic. And, naturally, given Andy an exquisite ring.

Proposal and ring had both come to Andy here, in fact, on this small deck. She smiled slightly, thinking of it; she glanced down at the diamonds glittering in the lights of the moon and the city, and at that moment Miranda emerged from the house with two glasses of wine. She handed Andy one and said, “Happy anniversary, darling,” kissed her gently, and then continued, “You look pleased.”

“I was just thinking about you proposing.”

“Your proposing.”

“Honey, I am one hundred percent sure that you did the proposing.”

“That was merely a correction, darling. The proposing— _my_ proposing—was an act. A thing. A noun. Therefore it takes a possessive pronoun, not a nominative pronoun, despite its being formed from a verb.” She glanced over, and Andy, well versed in the subtle shades of Miranda’s face by now, saw the amusement as clearly as if Miranda had grinned openly rather than twitched the corner of her mouth. “Gerunds confuse the best of us.”

“All right. I was thinking about your _proposal_.” Andy was rewarded with a chuckle, which was enough to make her laugh in happiness.

“You’re a philistine.”

“You’re a pedant.”

“Yes. What were you thinking about the proposal?”

“How beautiful it was. How you managed to surprise me even though I knew you were going to do it.” Andy slipped her arm around Miranda’s waist. “How much I loved you in that moment. How much I love you still.”

Andy had offered to do the proposing, since she was the one insisting on the formality. Miranda had replied that she was determined to make this marriage different from either of her previous marriages, and it was going to start with her being the one to initiate it. Weeks went by, and just as Andy had concluded that the marriage proposal had been drowned in the minutiae of Miranda’s overwhelmingly busy life and let it go, she had answered a texted summons to the deck to find dozens of lit candles, champagne in a bucket of ice, and, sitting on one of the two reclaimed teak chairs, Miranda herself, wearing nothing but the midnight-blue silk robe that she had worn (briefly) on their very first night together.

“It was well done, wasn’t it,” Miranda said complacently, never one for false modesty. She touched Andy’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “My favorite part, though, was you saying yes.”

Andy grinned wickedly. “Your saying.”

Miranda laughed. “Touché.” Then, seriously, “Your face as you said yes.” She leaned in and brushed her cheek against Andy’s. “I have never in my life seen anything as beautiful as you were in that moment. The love I saw in your face. For me.” There was a lingering disbelief in the last two words.

There was no sufficient reply to this except a kiss, so Andy kissed her, long and sweet. 

Miranda looked out at the dark canyon of their and the other neighboring backyards, hidden and private behind the stern sentries of the rows of attached townhouses. “You knew, didn’t you,” she said.

“Knew what?” Andy asked, though she was pretty sure she understood.

“All that time ago, when we started. Perhaps even that first night you came to the house. You knew we would end up here. All that ‘all I want is sex’ nonsense.” 

Andy smiled into her wineglass. “I didn’t _know_ ,” she said. “I was hoping, sure. I knew what I wanted. But I didn’t know I’d get it.” With a sideways glance, she added, “If sex had been all I’d gotten, I would have lived with it. It was pretty good sex.” 

Miranda studied her. “I knew,” she said abruptly.

Andy stared at her in confusion. “But—you said—you’ve always said—”

“Oh, I didn’t know it would work. I certainly didn’t know we’d have _this_ ,” Miranda said, waving her hand to indicate the two of them, the house, their life, maybe the entire city. “But I knew that if it happened, it would be the end, for me.”

Andy cocked her head, puzzled. The smile Miranda gave her was shadowed and sad, and when she spoke again she was slow and deliberate, every phrase considered. 

“For twenty years I’d kept away from anything that might make me need a real human connection. Every time I felt something that could have become love, I killed it. With work, and cruelty, and unsuitable men.” She sighed, and for a moment she actually looked sixty-three years old. “When you came into my life, I was just beginning to grapple with the terrible thing I’d done to myself. The emptiness. It was the girls, really, who made me see it. I had started to think about what I was passing on to them, and I realized that I did not want them to live the way I lived.

“I thought I might, if I were lucky, have one great love left in me. And I decided that if someone came along who made me feel for her, I would let it happen.”

“But you tried so hard to push me away,” Andy whispered. “You warned me off, over and over again.”

“All I hoped was that I could feel,” Miranda said. “I had no expectation that I would have a relationship, much less a marriage. I didn’t intend to actually inflict myself on anyone.” She shook her head, amazed bemusement clear on her face. “And then you came to me, and you wouldn’t go away.”

Andy put her glass down on the small table and wrapped her other arm around Miranda as well. “No, I wouldn’t. I won’t.”

“It’s still a terrible idea,” Miranda said, though there was now teasing in her tone. “You’ll end up nursemaiding me through my ghastly declining years.” 

“Maybe,” Andy said, shrugging. “Or maybe you’ll be ziplining in Costa Rica after I’m dust and ashes. You’ll just have to stick around and see what happens.”

“You are the greatest gift of my entire life,” Miranda said, running a finger over Andy’s cheekbone, down her jaw.

Andy laughed. “That would be your kids and you know it.” 

“They weren’t a gift,” Miranda corrected her. “I chose to have children. I planned them. Who they’ve turned out to be is a delightful surprise, but they were not bestowed on me.” She leaned forward and put her forehead into the crook of Andy’s neck; indistinctly she repeated, “You are the greatest gift.”

Andy pushed her fingers into Miranda’s hair and cradled the back of her head, keeping her close, breathing in the scent of her. Her heart was so full with what Miranda had said that she couldn’t even open her mouth for fear that what would come out was a sob. After a long moment, she was able to say, “The best gift I’ve ever given.”


End file.
